Isaac Jennings

Isaac Jennings (November 7, 1788 March 13, 1874) was an American medical doctor and writer who pioneered orthopathy (natural hygiene).

Biography

Jennings was born on November 7, 1788, in Fairfield, Connecticut. He studied medicine with Eli Ives of New Haven. He was licensed to practice medicine and located himself in Trumbull, Connecticut. He obtained his M.D. from Yale in 1828. His patients health improved but caused controversy when his secret was revealed and his patients requested medicine. He refused to prescribe medicine and his career was damaged. The experiment convinced him that drugs were worthless and by the 1830s, he even discarded placebos. He believed that only nature could "restore her damaged machinery and revitalize it."

In 1839, he became a member of the Board of Trustees of the Oberlin College. In 1847 at the college, he wrote his book Medical Reform. He prescribed bathing, rest and a vegetarian diet as part of his system.

His no-medicine plan was based on the idea of vitalism. He believed that nature does its best to keep the human system in health and to give the best opportunity for the "vital forces" to work, the patient must rest and not be disturbed by medicine or stimulants. A review of his book The Tree of Life suggested it was "without a particle of merit" and the ideas would not be popular with people of the present day.

Jennings died of pneumonia on March 13, 1874, in Oberlin, Ohio.

Publications

Medical Reform: A Treatise on Man's Physical Being and Disorders (1847) The Philosophy of Human Life (1852) The Tree of Life: Or, Human Degeneracy, its Nature and Remedy: Based on the Elevating Principle of Orthopathy (1867)